172 T. C. ELLIOTT
to language or occurrence. It happened that winter that one of the balmy breezes known as a "chinook" melted the snows on the mountains sufficiently to cause a very sudden and unusual rise of the River, which was the occasion for the sudden movement of the boat from Celilo to the "mess house." Then followed almost immediately the usual low water stage of water which permitted taking her through the Lower Dalles.
In 1888, June-September, inclusive, Capt. Troup piloted the steamer D. S. Baker through in the same manner; and now (May, 1915), Capt. Troup is a guest on the first boat to descend through the Dalles-Celilo Canal, so that it is possible for him to say that he has passed from the Upper to the Middle River by water three times, once in three months, again in eleven days, and again in two and a half hours.
It has been stated that at no time during the ascendency of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was any attempt made to construct a portage railroad on the north side of the Columbia around Celilo Falls and The Dalles. With the marvelous development in the production of grain in the Inland Empire and the increase in its population the River again began to be thought of as a means of transportation, and a very progressive gentleman named Paul Mohr, of Spokane, obtained title to points of land along the north bank with the purpose of again connecting the two parts of the river by rail portage. His first organization was called the Farmers' Railway Trans- portation and Steamboat Portage Company in the year 1885, consisting of two residents of Spokane and seven from Walla Walla, none of whom were horny-handed tillers of the soil, however. The Government Locks at the Cascades were then in process of construction and it was aimed to make use of these. One or two reorganizations followed, but without evidence of physical activity; the last was called The Columbia River Railway and Navigation Company and included capitalists from Chicago, New York and Boston. But in 1899 the project was revived and the Central Naviga- tion and Construction Company (really the construction end
